Ashton-Kirk, Investigator Part 26

Ashton-Kirk nodded, but before he could reply in words there came a clatter upon the rickety stairs at the far end of the entry. A thin, slipshod woman with untidy hair and a sharp face paused on the lower step and looked out at them.

"What do you want?" she demanded, shrilly.

Ashton-Kirk, followed by Pendleton, stepped inside and advanced down the entry.

"Are you Mrs. Marx?" he inquired.

"Yes," snapped the woman. "What do you want?"

"A little information."

"You're a reporter!" accused the sharp-faced woman. "And let me tell you that I don't want nothing more to say to no reporters."

But Ashton-Kirk soothingly denied the accusation.

"I dare say you've been bothered to death by newspaper men," spoke he.

"But we a.s.sure you that--"

"It don't make no difference," stated the woman, rearing her head until her long chin pointed straight at them. "I ain't got nothing to say to n.o.body. I don't want to get into no trouble."

"The only way you can possibly get into trouble in this matter," said the investigator, "is to conceal what you know. An attempt to hide facts is always considered by the police as a sort of admission of complicity."

The woman at this lifted a corner of a soiled ap.r.o.n and applied it to her eyes.

"Things is come to a nice pa.s.s," she said, vainly endeavoring to squeeze a tear from eyes to which such things had long been strangers, "when a respectable woman can't mind her own business in her own house."

At this point, Pendleton, who looked discreetly away, caught the rustle of a crisp bill; and when Mrs. Marx spoke again, her tone had undergone a decided change.

"But of course," she said, "if the law asks me anything, I must do the best I can. I've kept a rooming house for a good many years now, gentlemen, and this is the first time I have had any notoriety. It is, I a.s.sure you."

As Ashton-Kirk had seen at a second glance, Mrs. Marx was a lady fully competent to confront any situation that might arise; so he wasted no time in soothing her injured feelings.

"We desire any information that you can give us regarding your lodger, Antonio Spatola," said he. "Tell us all you know about him."

"He wasn't a bad-hearted young man," said the landlady, "but for all that I wish I'd never seen him. If I hadn't then I'd never had this disgrace come on me."

Here she made another effort with the corner of her ap.r.o.n; but it was even more unsuccessful than the first. She gave it up and went on acidly.

"Mr. Spatola came here almost three years ago. He was engaged in one of the vaudeville theaters near here--in the orchestra--and he rented my second story front at six dollars a week. Except for the fact that he _would_ play awfully shivery music at all hours of the night, I was glad to have him. He was quiet and polite; he paid regularly and,"

smoothing back the untidy hair, "he gave a kind of tone to the house.

"But then he lost his position. Had a fight, I understand, with somebody. For a long time he had no work; he moved from the second story-front at six dollars a week into the attic at two. When he could get no place, he went on the street and played; afterwards he got the trained birds. I didn't like this much. It didn't do the house no good to have a street fiddler living in it; and then the birds were a regular nuisance with their noise. But he paid regular, and after a while he took to keeping the birds in a box in the loft, so I put up with it."

"We'll look at his room, if you please," said the investigator.

Complainingly, the woman led the way up the infirm staircase. At the fourth floor she pushed open a door and showed them into a long loft-like room with high ceiling and mansard windows. There came a squawking and fluttering from somewhere above as they entered.

"Them's the c.o.c.katoos," said the landlady. "They miss Mr. Spatola very much. When I go to feed them with the stale bread and seed he has here for them, would you believe it, they'll hardly eat a thing."

The room was without a floor covering. Upon some rough shelves, nailed to the wall, were heaps of music. A violin case also lay there. There were a few chairs, a cot-bed, and a neat pile of books upon a table.

Ashton-Kirk ran over these quickly; they were mostly upon musical subjects, and in Italian. But some were Spanish, English, German and French.

"He was the greatest hand for talking and reading languages," said Mrs. Marx, wonderingly. "I don't think there was any kind of a nationality that he couldn't converse with. Mr. Sagon that lives on the floor below says that his French was elegant, and Mr. Hertz, my parlor lodger, used to just love to talk German with him. He said his German was so _high_."

Ashton-Kirk opened the violin case and looked at the instrument within.

"Spatola always carried his violin in this when he went out, I suppose?" he said, inquiringly.

"Oh, yes; _that_ one he did. But the one on the wall there," pointing to a second instrument hanging from a peg, "he never took much care of that. It's the one he played on the street, you see."

Her visitors followed the gesture with interest.

"That was just to clinch a point I made with Fuller this morning,"

said the investigator to Pendleton, in explanation. Then to Mrs. Marx he continued: "Mr. Spatola had visitors from time to time, had he not?"

But the woman shook her head.

"Sometimes he had a pupil who came in the evening. But they never came more than once or twice; he generally called them thick-heads after a little, and told them they'd better go back to the grocery or butcher's shop where they belonged."

"Are you quite sure that no one else ever called upon him?"

The woman nodded positively.

"I'm certain sure of it," she said. "I remember saying more than once to my gentlemen on the different floors, that Mr. Spatola must be awfully lonely sometimes. Mr. Crawford would often come up here and smoke with him and play a game or two of Pedro. Mr. Hertz tried it a couple of times; but him and Mr. Spatola couldn't hit it very well."

"How many lodgers have you?"

"I have rooms for nine. Just now there are seven. But only four are steadies--Mr. Hertz, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Sagon and Mr. Spatola. Mr.

Hertz is an inspector of the people who canva.s.s for the city directory; he took the parlor after Mr. Spatola gave it up. He drinks a little, but he's a perfect gentleman for all that. Mr. Crawford is a traveling man, and is seldom home; but he pays in advance, so I don't never worry about him. Mr. Sagon is what they call an expert. He can't speak much English yet, but sometimes even the government," in an awed tone, "sends for him to come to the customs house to tell them how much diamonds are worth, that people bring in. He works for Baum Brothers and Wright. The others," bulking them as being of no consequence, "are all gentlemen who are employed on the directory under Mr. Hertz."

"Have you any Italian lodgers other than Mr. Spatola?"

The woman shook her head.

"No," she said, "and I don't want none, if this is the way they carry on."

"Are there any other rooming houses in the street?"

"No, sir. It's only a block long, and I know every house in it. I'm the only one as takes lodgers."

"Are there any Italians in business in the block, or employed in any of the business places?"

Mrs. Marx again shook her head positively.

"Not any."

"You speak of a Mr. Sagon. Of what nationality is he?"

"Oh, he's French, but he's lived a long time in Antwerp. That's where he learned the diamond business. And he must have lived in other places in Europe; Mr. Spatola says he has spoken of them often."